Birthday Bowling

For my birthday, way back in December, we went bowling. I thought it would be a fun way to spend the day before New Year's. We picked up a good deal at the local Brunswick where for $60 6 people got two hours of bowling, shoe rental, a pizza, and unlimited soda. We thought we'd invite Gideon and his dad to join us to make 6. We also invited them so Gideon's Mom would have the house to herself and Sylvie so she could clean for the New Year's Eve party they were hosting later that night.

To make the bowling experience as fun as we could we had bumpers setup in the lane. The bumpers keep all of the balls in the lane and out of the gutter where balls usually go when kids are bowling. Josh being an old pro at this also brought over a bowling ball ramp. This ramp will allow the kids to put the balls up high enough that the ball has some decent speed when it hits the pins. The increased speed keeps the action up and the kids interested.

Even with all of that Luke's interest waned about 3/4s the way through the first game. Both he and Gideon thought the circular ball racks would be more fun than bowling. We made Luke finish his game and after that one of us bowled in his place. He didn't seem to mind. Luke was also a big fan of the ball return. So much so that he wanted to stick his hands down the hole. We had to explain to him a few times that it would be really bad if he left his hand where it was. Luckily he did figure it out without having any pain inflicted. Normally he has to learn the hard way.

Alyce did well. We thought it was going to be just normal bowling but instead it was Cosmic Bowling. Cosmic Bowling is when they turn off all the lights except for black lights and other special effects. Add in some music and you have a party; if you're a teenager. We thought Alyce with her delicate sensibilities would freak out with the instant darkness and noise but she handled it like a champ. Even last year while on vacation she was very fragile when her environment changed. Since then she has been able to handle that stuff a lot better. It's amazing how things change and so quickly.

Little Miss Modesty

Yesterday like every other day I brought Alyce over to Grams and Papa's house after dance class. We stop by to pick up Luke and to change Alyce out of her leotard. Most nights Alyce changes her clothes in the living room in front of god and everyone. Tonight was not one of those nights. When I got Alyce's clothes out she whispers in my ear that she wants to change in private. I have no idea why she wanted to do that. I guess she is developing some modesty. She didn't have any trouble changing in front of me so I guess her modesty only extends outside of the immediate family. While in the bathroom Alyce said she wanted to change in there from now on. It'll be interesting to see if her modesty is there next week. It's probably time she develops some modesty.

Registered for Kindergarten

This week we registered Alyce for kindergarten. Yet another step out of the nest. Alyce is pretty excited about it too. I think she would be ok if she just started going today.

We had the option if sending her to a full day of class but the school district doesn't pay for that. So she'll just have half a day every day. By state law they can't teach the full day kids anymore than the half day so we aren't missing much.

When she starts she'll be at yet another school. Her fourth one in four years. Alyce will also get to ride the bus! Sadly with scheduling the way it is we think we will have to drop her off at school because Luke's preschool starts 10 minutes after Alyce's.

It's pretty cool she's going to be going to school 5 days a week. At the same point I'm kind of sad that she's growing up.

Counting to 28

Mom got an update about Alyce when picking her up from school today. Apparently Alyce can count to 28 now. I'm not sure what constitutes being able to count to 28.  Do you get from 1 - 28 with 0 errors or are you allowed to miss a few? The reason I'm wondering is because we have been working with Alyce to count to 20. She does really good, however, she misses 13 every time!  Even if we make her say the word thirteen and then go eleven, twelve, <pause> we are greeted with a very unsure "fourteen".

But if the teacher said she counted to 28 then the school thinks she counted to 28 and for right now that is good enough for us. I figure she'll get 13 correct before it becomes issue.

Lego Friends

Alyce has picked up a new interest, Legos. She's built with them since Duplos but has now taken a serious interest in them. We've put a few of my sets together and even though the instructions were tough she managed them well.
Today we picked her up her own set of Legos. It's from a new line that Lego put out expressly for girls called Lego "Friends". Gone are the blocky mini figures and here are cute little girls with names like Stephanie and Mia. Also a lot of the blocks are more girl friendly colors like pink, purple, and fuchsia. The sets are also girl friendly too.

Some people are up in arms about the whole thing. Saying that Lego is pandering. People vote with their credit card and from what the shelves looked like today the general public likes them.

Alyce had been asking for these since seeing the flyer in the mail. She's also taken to building things in her room during quiet time. The aspect we like the most is that Alyce is staying in her room playing in the morning rather than waking us up!

As we were walking out to the car Alyce said "thanks Mom" and gave her a hug. Putting the set together at Grams and Papas house was a lot of fun. Alyce assembled just about everything herself. I only helped locate the parts and checked to see if she missed a step. Mom and I went out to see a movie. When we got back Alyce was playing with her new toys and even now an hour later she's still going at it. I'm playing with her some. We took turns being first place in the dog show. Her dog is called White Polka Dot and mine is called Graham Cracker.

Influenza

Our families health this winter has been less than optimal. Even before winter we were all sick for Thanksgiving. Leading up the Christmas Alyce had her bout of pneumonia. Now that we've crossed into 2012 the trend hasn't changed.

Alyce had a checkup for her pneumonia a little over a week after her diagnosis. We were happy to find out that it had cleared up however she had picked up an ear infection in the mean time. So Alyce was prescribed yet another set of antibiotics for her ears. About a week into those antibiotics Alyce got sick again and we thought it was her ear infection flaring up a bit. It turns out it was some form of viral infection. Knock on wood but she seems to have cleared out of most of that.

Luke on the other hand picked up a bug from school. This was a lot like Alyce's flu that led to her pneumonia a month prior. There was a low grade fever and he was in a nasty mood. His appetite was gone except for liquids and yogurt. We are guessing that he had a sore throat too. He came down on a Thursday night and for the next 4 days there wasn't much improvement. The worst part about Luke being sick is that he is extremely clingy. From the moment he'd wake and for the next few hours the only words out of his mouth were mommy and juice. Hearing someone say mommy 100+ times gets annoying. On the 5th day right about when we were going to call the doctor his fever broke. That was this last Tuesday and we were left wondering what to do. His mood has improved some and his eating is slowly returning to normal. We've decided to let him recuperate on his own and avoid yet another trip to the doctors office.

Right as Luke was showing signs of improvement Mom came down with the same thing. Most like obtained from Luke and his countless coughs without covering his mouth. She's still working past her symptoms but is on the mend.

I've picked up their cold and it seems to show as a sore throat. Isn't too terrible but it seems to be sticking around for a while without moving to other parts of my body. I'd say I have had the easiest run of them all. I'm sure my turn is coming soon.

I'm hoping there isn't much left out there in the way of influenza this year. I'm getting tired of paying for school only to have our kids stay home sick. Even if the rest of the winter is healthy I'm sure we have the exact same thing to look forward to next year. It's becoming an annual tradition to miss a month of school.

Sled While You Can

For Christmas the kids got a sled from Santa. With all the hills in our neighborhood it would be a crime to miss a chance to sled down them if we didn't have a sled.  As luck would have it two days after Christmas we got our first and only snow (so far) of the season. The snow however would be short lived. The snow fell during the night and by the time the sun had come up it was already melting away. To take advantage of the situation I drug myself out of bed, got dressed, and took Alyce out into the snow.  With maybe an inch of wet snow on the ground we took to sledding down the hill behind our house. The melting snow made a mess of the ground under our feet. We were lucky to keep our balance otherwise we would have come out muddy.

Alyce took a few turns on the sled with me holding onto the rope directing her. Next I let her go down the hill on her own. She wasn't too keen on that but for a 10' drop on a hill my assistance wasn't needed. We had fun kidding around too. At one point Alyce said "hey dad let's have a race up the hill", turns and runs up the hill, a few steps into it she starts running and yells "go!".

As our time wound down we walked back to the house. Alyce asked if we could have a snowball fight. So for the next few minutes I showed Alyce how to make some good snowballs and we tossed them at each other. A good time was had by all.

An hour or so after we went inside the snow was no more. Hopefully we'll get a chance to use the sled again before the winter is over.

Computer User

A while ago Alyce started using the computer. Using in its loosest sense I guess. I'm not sure when it started but Mom turned her onto the Disney Junior website. On the site there are lots of games for kids to play. They aren't too complicated and don't require reading harder than knowing your ABCs. After a few days playing Alyce has gotten pretty good at some of them.

Her skill in games isn't what caught my attention it was how quickly she learned to use the mouse. When she started, moving the mouse was a two handed affair, and pressing the mouse button would move the cursor off of where she wanted it to be. In two short weeks she advanced to using the mouse one handed and using the correct buttons with the correct fingers. She learned all of this stuff on her own. Pretty neat.

Pneumonia

Alyce has had her first serious illness, pneumonia! Last Thursday we could tell she was coming down with something. Alyce just wasn't her self. By Friday morning she was running a temperature. We kept her home from school that day. She had a classic case of the flu. Aches, watery eyes, fever, and a cough. We thought no big deal. Better this than a stomach bug. Tylenol was controlling the fever so we thought we'd save a dollar or two by skipping the doctor and letting it run its course.

Well Friday bled into Saturday then Sunday and finally Monday morning. With no sign of her fever breaking we knew it was time to go see a doctor. So Alyce, missing yet another day of school was brought into see the doctor. The doc listened to Alyce's lungs and wasn't immediately concerned. She said that if it were only a day or so old she would recommend letting it run its course. But since we were on day 5 she recommended a chest X ray. Mom took Alyce to the the radiologist and Alyce in the back all by herself she stood still for a film to be taken. Upon review Alyce did in fact have pneumonia. Lower left lung pneumonia if the location makes a difference? In any case the doctor prescribed two antibiotics to combat the infection if it were bacterial in nature. The morning after the first dose of medicine Alyce was a new girl. Her fever was mostly gone and her energy returned. Obviously we are keeping up with the course of medicine but so far the results are encouraging.

The improvement came Tuesday morning, however, Alyce had her last day of school for the year the next day. It was kind of a toss up as to whether she should go to school. We came to the conclusion that she shouldn't go to so that she wouldn't have a chance to pick up yet another bug right before Christmas. Alyce very much wanting to go to school to show off her newly lost tooth was itching to go to school. We didn't have it in our heart to tell her we were keeping her from school again. So instead we told her that school was already on Christmas break. It probably wasn't the best thing to do lying to her but in this situation there wasn't much downside to keeping it from her. So Alyce when you go about reading this post years from now understand we just didn't want to upset you.

The Solar System

The picture above is Alyce's rendering of our solar system. She drew this today at the house. In the bottom right hand corner is Earth; see the green and blue? In the middle on the bottom is the sun. The bottom left is Mars. Upper left with the orange center is Saturn. The stars cross the picture. And finally the black circle with a white center in the upper right is the moon. It is partially shaded to show the dark and light side of the moon.

The amount of detail in one picture just floors me. We've been reading a book that talks about the planets and she's watched a few television shows focused on the planets but this is more than I expected.

Oh and Jupiter is supposed to be in there as well but it was too big to fit on the page.